Piece description: "SURVIVING DANCE CRASH MOMENTS"

Choreography- Ronnie Heller

Performers- James Bailey & Ronnie Heller


In the piece "Surviving Dance Crash Moments" I "tackle" the subject if free will in relation to automaticity of human behavior (as found extensively today in the neuroscience research) and debate the implications of it on the subject of freedom and morality. In the solo I dance to the interview of Ulrike Meinhof at her home, describing the conflict between the political and the personal as she arrives out of moral debate to the action of abandoning her children and joining the terrorist group of "Baden Meinhof". In the Duet the same patterns that appeared in the solo' are discovered to be part of mechanisms of crashing into a partner in different patterns. These patterns come from the deconstruction of the social action of "Hugging" by acceleration in to crashes. The relationship that is presented in the duet reveals the automatic mechanisms that it is created of while still provoking an emotional affect.

As a dancer and choreographer I am currently fascinated by crashing. By finding the way to prime the whole body to meet softly and articulately with the floor or with another body, I find the way to crash gently but with great intensity and speed. Exactly as the dancers foot is trained to meet the floor. As an artist and an academic scholar I am currently absorbed tormented and fascinated with the subject of "Free Will". This piece is a part of my research and expression of this subject.

www.ronnieheller.com

Link to the workshop:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1786803544723480/?ti=icl